


Hurting

by Randomdork



Category: Superstore (TV)
Genre: Break Up, Break Up Talk, Drinking, F/M, Post 6x02, Post-Break Up, Sad Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-13 18:07:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28907577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Randomdork/pseuds/Randomdork
Summary: It hurts a lot at first.It's a searing pain that practically consumes his entire body. It's giving Amy her ring back when he sees the way she panics about marriage. It's hearing Amy say she doesn't want to marry him. It's officially breaking up and sharing a resigned smile in the parking lot. It's losing Amy, Parker and Emma all at once.A look into Jonah dealing with the break up.
Relationships: Amy Dubanowski/Jonah Simms
Comments: 3
Kudos: 37





	Hurting

It hurts a lot at first.  
  
It's a searing pain that practically consumes his entire body. It's giving Amy her ring back when he sees the way she panics about marriage. It's hearing Amy say she doesn't want to marry him. It's officially breaking up and sharing a resigned smile in the parking lot. It's losing Amy, Parker and Emma all at once.  
  
It keeps hurting, no matter how much he wishes it to go away.  
  
He goes home with her, she doesn't try to apologize and Jonah can't help but wonder if she knows it would be pointless or if she simply doesn't know where to start. It takes a few days for him to pack his stuff and between ridding himself from Amy's life, he plays with Parker. He calls him 'Dada' and it breaks Jonah's heart. But still, Parker has no idea what's going on, so he just goes to high-five him with his funny voice like always. Eventually he moves into Garrett's apartment again. It's only temporary, they both know it, but he appreciates that Garrett doesn't emphasise that to him when he brings his boxes in. They act like things are normal and on the night he was supposed to leave for California he gets more drunk than he's ever been in his entire life.  
  
He wakes up the next morning with an awful hangover and the realization that it still hurts, but now its just a little less than before.  
  
Being at work is hard. He met her here. He kissed her here. He had a relationship with her and broke up with her here. Everyone at work tries to treat him as normal as possible and they never say Amy's name. A rational part of Jonah knows that it's unfair to them, she left them all too and they miss her. Hell, everyone except Mateo knew Amy before he did. But his life is the one that's been completely shattered so he allows himself to be a bit selfish and let her name go unsaid. He works in the store, everywhere but the photo lab, and then one day he's in the storage room.  
  
 _"What if I get out there and I realize that I made a mistake?"_  
  
 _"I'm guessing you'll know where to find me"_  
  
A tear falls and he lets it. He's been trying not to cry ever since that fight, probably some stupid toxic masculinity thing on his part, but he doesn't care. He cries, he doesn't sob, people are around after all. He cries out all of the grief in his heart that's been haunting him. Silent tears roll down his cheeks, one for every moment with Amy that makes his heart twist. His cheeks are red and his hair is a bit messy from the way he's been clutching at it. It sucks, he wants to know if Amy is doing as bad as him, and he hates himself a little when he almost wants her to be doing as bad as him.  
  
(He knows she isn't. She's Amy.)  
  
It hurts after that, but it becomes more manageable.  
  
It goes from a burning sting to a dull ache. He carries it in his chest, which is much better than holding it in his entire body. It stops becoming an anchor that weighs him down and just becomes a part of his life. Mateo and Cheyenne start gossiping about Amy's outfits and gradually they all start saying her name again. Life moves on.  
  
Because that's what happened really. Life moved on, and he thought they had a shared life, but that just wasn't the case. Her life was going in one direction and he would have been more than happy to follow but it wasn't meant to be. Somewhere along the way they stopped being on the same page, and if Jonah had left with her, Amy would have been left having to play emotional catch up.  
  
The realization is something of a breakthrough for him, but it doesn't help on the nights when the chill of loneliness runs down his spine and leaves desperately wanting Amy's touch. He wants to hug Parker, talk to Emma about her annoying classmate Madison and then tease Amy that her kids like him better.  
  
Somehow, it doesn't feel impossible. There really is some minuscule part of him that feels like maybe, just maybe, Amy might come back to him one day. Their relationship ended on strained but relatively good terms. He doesn't know if he's delusional or not for wanting Amy to call him and tell him she regrets everything and that she wants him no matter what.  
  
Coincidentally, she does call one night at 3am when he can't sleep because he misses her, she just doesn't tell him what he wants to hear.  
  
 _"Jonah"_  
  
Her voice is thick and trembling and he can tell she's been crying.  
  
"Are you okay?" It's a pointless question but a necessary one, they're not in the place anymore where they can skip formalities.  
  
" _I'm okay but this... The move... The job... The break up... It's been hard"_  
  
"Hey, you've got this. I'm sure you're kicking ass in California"  
  
His encouragement comes on instinct. It's what he's always done, for everyone, but especially for her. From the moment they'd met he'd wanted her to realize that she was _so_ much more important than she thought herself to be. He had been her cheerleader, and he was always encouraging her to make her way in the world and leave the store, Jonah had never realized he was encouraging her to leave him too.  
  
They talk for a small while and he cheers her up. He doesn't know why. He knows that he should want to yell at her for calling him in the middle of the night months after not hearing anything from her, just to have him comfort her. But he doesn't want to do that. Yelling wouldn't achieve anything. So they keep talking.  
  
She asks about how he's been and he lies and tells he's been doing okay. Once again, they both know he's lying. He's been a mess and he's fairly sure that Dina, Cheyenne and the rest of Cloud 9 are telling her that. She tells him that Parker keeps asking for him and it comforts him a little to know he's not been forgotten. It's nice to hear her voice again, even if it's lost a bit of its passion.  
  
Jonah knows he should still be mad at Amy, and maybe he still is a little even if he's not yelling. But then he should also be mad at himself for even picking up in the first place.  
  
Amy once said that she didn't believe in soul mates, but rather different people for different phases in your life. She was in a different phase, a brand new chapter and Jonah didn't fit into it anymore. She was in a chapter called 'California.'  
  
The difference between the two of them was that Jonah's chapters were titled by names not by places, and even if she's moved on, he's still in the six year long chapter called 'Amy'.  
  
That's how he still talks to her. She's Amy. She's the love of his life. For now. Maybe one day she won't be anymore and he'll find someone else to name his next chapter after. One day, not today. Today, he's not quite ready to write their final sentence.  
  
Even if their chapter hasn't quite reached its end, their phone call has. Their both exhausted, for a huge range of reasons. The talk is nice, but he knows nothing will change, they're not going to hang up and become the best of friends again. She may never call him again after this, so appreciates the call as much as he can. He hears a hesitant breath on her end of the phone before she speaks softly.  
  
" _I miss you"_  
  
It hurts, but then he realizes that that's just how it is, it's going to hurt for a while and there's nothing he can do about it.  
  
He misses her too, he doesn't see much point in saying it. She knows he feels the same way. Instead, he plasters a melancholy smile on his face and allows the hurt their both feeling to surface in his voice as he finally, _finally_ , accepts the situation for what it is.

"I know you do"

**Author's Note:**

> I hated Amy and Jonah's break up. It felt quite forced to me if I'm being honest, but I digress. The show hasn't really explored Jonah's feelings towards the break up so far so I'm doing it. And if Jonah and Amy don't end up together then I will happily pretend that the show ended at season 5. 
> 
> Hope you all like it! This actually my first time writing in the Superstore fandom! 
> 
> Shohini :)


End file.
